PS: Introduction to Psycholinguistics
Winter Term 2005/06
Instructor: Daniel Wiechmann
Office hours: Mon 2-3 pm
Email: daniel.wiechmann@uni-jena.de
Phone: 03641-944534
Web: www.daniel-wiechmann.net
Session 2:
Before we start
 Files currently in digital
library:
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Power Point presentations
(PPT):
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Readme
 How to read
a scientific term paper
Session 1
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syllabus
experimental design
BitMaps
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Project presentation order
Student recap order
PDFs

Spreadsheets (XLS):
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Links
Stroop effect
 PPT viewer download
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Session 2:
Perception
 “The term ‘perception’
refers to the means by
which information
acquired via the sense
organs is transformed into
experiences of objects,
events, sounds, tastes,
etc.”
(Roth, 1986)
Session 2:
perception/perceptual segregation/Gestalt school
 perceptual segregation ->
our ability to work out
which part of the visual
information presented to
us belong together and
thus form seperate
objects
 Gestalt psychology
(group of German
researchers in 1930ies)
Max Wertheimer
(1880-1943)
Kurt Koffka
(1886-1941)
Session 2:
perception/vision/Gestalt psychology
Session 2:
perception/vision/Gestalt psychology
Session 2:
perception/visual/illusion/figure-ground switch
Session 2:
Perception/visual/illusion/Müller-Lyer
http://humanities.lit.nagoyau.ac.jp/~illusion/gallery/NVEG/on_off/MullerLyer01_e.html
Session 2:
perception/vision/2D to 3D/human eye
Session 2
perception/vision/bottom up-top down
property extraction
depth and size perception
Gestalt principles
contextual integration
http://www.cs.ucla.e
du/~cguo/primal_sk
etch.htm
Session 2
perception/auditory/language
Session 2
perception/vision/
 Perception can be viewed as an active and
constructive process (constructivist view)
 It is „something more than the direct registration of
sensation“
 „Other events intervene between stimulation and
experience“ (Gordon, 1989
Session 2
perception/vision/
 Perception is not directly given by the stimulus
input, but occurs as the end-product of the
interaction of the presented stimulus and existent
knowledge
 Perception is influenced by hypotheses and
expectations that are sometimes incorrect, and so it
is sometimes prone to error“
Session 2
perception/vision/bottom up-top down
 Stimulus- (or data-) driven processing has
been termed “bottom up-processing”
 Expectation driven processing has been
termed “top down” processing
 Perception involves both types of processing
Session 2
perception/vision/bottom up-top down
Session 2:
Psychology and language
B.F Skinner 1904-1990
- conducted pioneering work in experimental
psychology
- leader of behaviorist psychology, which seeks to
understand behavior as a function of environmental
histories of reinforcement
- language is a form of behavior
1957 “Verbal behavior”:
- each act of speech is an inevitable consequence of
the speaker's current environment and his behavioral
and sensory history
-derived mentalistic terms such as "idea", "plan" and
"concept" as unscientific and of no use in the study of
behavior
Session 2:
Cognitive revolution:
Noam Chomsky (1928-)
1959 Review of Skinner Verbal Behavior
- paved the way for the revolution against behaviorist
doctrine
- language acquisition could not be explained with the
resources of the classical theory of conditioning
- it requires the positing of innate representational
structures governed by rules (Universal Grammar)
 Chomsky‘s questions:
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How powerful must human language be?
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cf. Chomsky hierarchy
How should it be described?

cf. Principles and Parameters (P&P)
Session 2:
Describing language: Chomsky
 Chomsky has argued that human beings have a „genetically
endowed language faculty“
 The language faculty must be such as to allow the child to
acquire the grammar of any natural language on the basis of
suitable experience of the language
 The defining characteristics of this faculty are described by a
set of principles of Universal Grammar (UG)
Some preliminaries:
Knowing a language
Phenomenon 1:
(s) All the passengers on the plane would rather listen to Abbott and
Costello than watch another crummy movie.
Phenomenon 2:
(s1) Sara is a graduate student.
(s2) William believes that Sara is a graduate student.
(s3) Peter said that William believes that Sara is a graduate student.
(s4) Mary remarked that Peter said that William believes that Sara is a
graduate student.
[s1, ... , sn]
Some preliminaries:
Knowing a language
From this it follows that a speaker (S) cannot have
simply memorized the complete set of sentences of
a language (L).
(=the knowledge of L cannot be characterized as a
list of sentences)
As a working hypothesis, we will say that this
knowledge is better conceived of as consisting of a finite
set of rules and principles (mental grammar) applied to
a finite set of lexical items (mental lexicon).
Session 2:
Describing language: P&P
 Principles and parameters theory (cf., e.g.
Chomsky 1981) assumes:
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
there are universal principles common to all
languages (“blueprint of language“)
cross linguistic differences arise from differences
in parameter-settings
Session 2:
P&P: Principles...
 Example principle:
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Structure dependence principle:
All grammatical operations are structure
dependent.

e.g. question formation rule in English (yes/no questions)
Session 2:
On structure dependency
Mininmal assumption: No structure dependency
Declarative: John can lift 500 pounds
1
2 3 4
5
Interrogative: Can John lift 500 pounds?
QR: Move item 2 to initial position
Now, consider:
- Many linguists are thought to be odd.
- The people who are standing there will leave soon.
Session 2:
On structure dependency
To form a (bipolar) question from a declarative
sentence, locate the first auxiliary verb that
follows the subject of the sentence and place it
immediately to the left of the subject.
Session 2:
P&P: ... and Parameters
 Example for differences in parameter-setting:
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Null subject parameter (PRO-drop)

Some languages require an overt subject, whereas
others do not
 It is raining.
 I like trees.
 _ like trees (PRO drop).
Session 2:
P&P: ... and Parameters
 Example for differences in parameter-setting:
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Wh-parameter

Some languages “move” their Wh-elements to
sentence initial position, whereas others leave them in
situ (no movement)
 Peter likes [ice-cream].
 Peter likes [what] (=substitution with wh-element)
 What does Peter like trace ____
Session 2:
P&P: ... and Parameters
 Example for differences in parameter-setting:

Head (position) parameter

In some languages, heads (N,V,A,P) precede their
complements; in others it is the other way round
Session 2:
Describing language: X-bar theory
 X-bar (X’) syntax
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XP -> (YP) X’ [Specifier X-bar projection]
X’ -> X (ZP) [HEAD, COMPLEMENT]
Session 2:
Automata theory
Automata are abstract mathematical
models of machines that perform
computations on an input by moving
through a series of states or
configurations
Session 2:
Automata theory
 Grammar, by definition, is a device that can
generate all and only the grammatical
sentences of a given language (L)
 Each Grammar corresponds to particular type
of automaton
 Grammars/automata can be arranged in terms
of complexity/power (-> Chomsky hierarchy)
Session 2:
Languages and automata
Session 2:
Automata theory: Final state devices
 A finite-state device moves
from one state to another
depending on ist current
state and current input (->
produces type 3 language)
Session 2:
Automata theory: Final state devices
Session 2:
Automata theory: Pushdown (Keller)
automaton
 has a memory
(limited capacity)

Push-down stack
(only last item in
memory can be
retrieved)
 capable of producing
type 2 grammars that
can parse context free
languages
Session 2:
Automata theory: linear bounded
automaton
 has a limited memory but can retrieve
anything from memory
 capable of producing type 1 grammars
Session 2:
Automata theory: Turing machine
 has no
limitations
 capable of
producing type
0 grammars
Session 2:
Automata theory: Turing machine
Alan Turing (1912-1954)
the father of modern computer
science and „inventor“ of the
Turing machine
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries
/turing
Session 2:
Automata theory: Turing machine
 Chomsky argued that it is necessary to add
transformations to a phrase structure
grammar (PSG)
 Resulting in a type 0 grammar
 That is to say: natural language can only be
produced by the most powerful kind of
grammar